On the Managemnet of Grief
by Shadow and Phoenix
Summary: This was a request by Holy'Shrimp. Gokudera is mourning the tenth's death, but in his grief turns to harmful methods to keep the gnawing pain inside at bay. Sorry the summary sucks. The story is better I hope .


Gokudera lay listlessly on the couch.

_The tenth is dead._

The room was dark, lit only by dull starlight filtering through the smoke stained window. A tie was crumpled on the floor, mostly undone. The ashtray on the coffee table was overflowing, a nearly empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter tossed beside it.

_He's dead._

Gokudera was in a worse state than the room. Shirt crumpled, half unbuttoned and jacket lost under the table, his eyes dark and hair unwashed.

_He's not coming back._

Gokudera groped around blindly on the table, his hand clamping over a small bottle. He fumbled with the childproof cap, nearly dropping the bottle in the process. Gokudera shook the pills out on to his chest, swallowing five dry and scooping the rest back into the bottle.

_The tenth is gone._

Gokudera breathed slowly, closing his eyes and fumbling for his cigarettes and lighter. These thoughts were too much, too loud. The nicotine rush just wasn't enough. The thoughts echoed about in his head, beating against his skull. Chaotic, frenetic motion, roiling and churning in the cerebral fluid. Cacophonous notes jumbling together, loud explosions; people screaming, crying-

Gokudera took a drag, fingering a small scar on his collarbone. He listened to his heart thumping, pumping the pills through his arteries, poisoning his blood. It had been a week since Tsuna's funeral. Gokudera had barely moved; hadn't eaten; hardly slept. The other guardians had called. They had tried to talk to him through the locked door of his apartment. It hadn't done anything.

Gokudera was startled out of his reverie by the door crashing open. Hands twitched instinctively toward the gun on the table, ash falling from the cigarette at the sudden, sluggish movement. It was a futile motion.

Gokudera was jerked up from the couch by his shirt front. He stared almost listlessly into angry grey eyes. Pupils dilated and vision unfocused. Gokudera blinked blearily at the Cloud before him.

"You're a pathetic herbivore. I could crush your throat and watch you struggle right now." Hibari snapped, eyes flashing with anger as he glared into the Storm's hazy green eyes. Gokudera croaked something, throat raw from disuse and abuse.

"I would deserve it. I failed him." Gokudera's eyes were fixed on some point past Hibari's left ear, shifting focus constantly. Hibari scoffed and dragged Gokudera around the couch, pausing to crush the dwindling cigarette in the ash tray. Gokudera stumbled drunkenly along, not sure where he was or where he was going until a cold stream of water stuck him in the chest.

"If you're this weak every time you lose someone, you're a pitiful creature and you never deserved to serve beside Sawada." Hibari said, watching Gokudera intently through narrowed eyes as the storm slumped heavily against the shower wall, eyes still shifting focus rapidly, pupils dilated even in the bright fluorescence of the bathroom. Gokudera blinked slowly several times, sliding down the wall until he was sitting in on the floor, still fully clothed and soaked through.

"I didn't deserve to be his right-hand man. I couldn't even save him. I couldn't st-" Hibari cut Gokudera off with a kick to the face. Gokudera lay limply on the floor, cheek pressed to the tiles. Hibari stalked out of the bathroom, leaving the storm to wallow in the shower stall.

A quick inventory of the area around the couch provided Hibari with the small, almost empty bottle. Narrowed eyes closed further as Hibari studied the bottle.

"Diphenhydramine hydrochloride, fifty milligram tablets." Hibari muttered. He was drawn from his thoughts by a shout from the bathroom. Hibari stalked quickly toward the bathroom, stopping short in the doorway. Gokudera was scrambling back into the corner of the shower, eyes wide and staring at the middle of the floor.

There was nothing wrong with the floor. Hibari stepped into the bathroom, setting the pill bottle on the counter. Gokudera was still trying to hide further back in the corner. Ignoring the cold water pouring out of the shower head, Hibari stepped in, grabbing a hold of Gokudera's arm. Gokudera struggled weakly, whimpering. Hibari hauled him out of the shower.

"How many did you take?" Hibari demanded sharply, fingers digging into Gokudera's arm. Gokudera's eyes finally seemed to focus on Hibari's face. His eyes were still wide with what Hibari could now identify as fear.

"It wasn't like this before. _He_ wasn't here before." Gokudera was on the verge of panic. Hibari's free hand darted up to grab Gokudera's face in an iron grip.

"_How many did you take?_" Hibari hissed. Gokudera mumbled shakily, eyes darting to the side to look past Hibari at the doorway.

"I don't know. Four. Or five. He's there, he's standing there." Gokudera mumbled incoherently in a panic. Hibari quickly calculated. Over two hundred milligrams. That would cause hallucinations. Gokudera was still babbling in his ear, words not making sense, mixing Italian and Japanese.

Hibari released Gokudera's arm, instead slapping him across the face several times.

"It's not real. You're hallucinating." Gokudera stared at Hibari, eyes still wide with fear. "You're going to clean yourself, and then you are going to sleep this off, and in the morning I will bite you to death for resorting to this idiocy."

-------Author's Note-------

I hope that they weren't too out of character… I'm just coming out of a writer's block, so I feel kinda rusty. And sorry for the abrupt ending. I forgot where I was going with it.

This was a request by Holy'Shrimp. This took about three hours to write. I am taking request, but check out my profile for the format to put them in. This is a part of a challenge to myself.

The prompts for this story were echo, pills, and terrible.

Thanks for reading and please review. You get bonus points if you can tell me about the scar 


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